NEURON RECORDING SYSTEM

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] This invention relates to methods, devices and system for recording of electrical signals from neurons.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] Understanding how the brain functions by recording the electrical activity of brain cells (neurons) has been pursued by neuroscientists and clinicians. The underlying mechanism of how neurons fire and interact can be translated into skilled and precise movements, and understanding the mechanism can be used as a tool for diagnosing brain diseases. It has been shown that recorded neuron activities from the motor cortex can be used to control a robotic device [1]-[2]. Neuroscientists have employed neuron recording from scalp or chronically implanted intracranial electrodes to investigate the electrophysiological activity for epileptic seizure detection and prediction [2]. Those experiments involved recording a large population of neurons and thus stimulated the need for the development of a multi-channel neuron recording system. US2008290944 discloses a micropower neural amplifier with adaptive power biasing for use in multi-electrode arrays is provided. The micropower neural amplifier includes a low noise gain stage. The low noise gain stage is implemented using an amplifier and pseudoresistor elements.

[0003] Challenges of designing a neuron recording system is highly correlated with the characteristics of the physiological neuron signals. The recording device must be able to record these signal with a large dynamic range in terms of signal amplitude and frequency, and to reject the DC offset occurring at the electrode-electrolyte interface. Power consumption of the system has to be reduced for long-term operation and to avoid elevating the temperature of brain tissue which could cause permanent damages [3]. The electrode impedance and amplifier input impedance form a voltage divider and thus the practical neuron signal shown at amplifier input is smaller than its actual value.

[0004] The degradation is severe for local field potentials (LFPs) recording because electrode impedance is much higher at 10 Hz than its value at 1-kHz [4]. If the neural signal at the recording amplifier input is seriously attenuated, it is difficult to be differentiated from the background noise. In addition, the next generation of this recording system should have the capability to process an enormous amount of neural information via signal detection, feature extraction, pattern classification and other mechanisms. A future recording system should also have the capability of reducing the amount of data to be transmitted and/or extracting a stable control signal from a large neuron pool in order to control prosthetic devices. The design challenges noted above can be translated into low-voltage and low-power design necessitating an advanced technology node. The present invention addresses at least some of these challenges.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0005] The invention is defined by the enclosed claims. An embodiment of the claimed invention provides a fully integrated low-power neuron recording front-end system in TSMC 65nm 1p6m MOS technology. The system is expandable to support thousand of channels. In one example, we have two recording modules, each containing 32 recording channels with tunable bandwidth and gain, a 32-to-1 multiplexer, one differential successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with programmable sampling rate on each channel, and a digital control module to govern the signal digitization as well as to encode and serialize the digitized neuron signal from two ADCs. Results for both post-layout simulations and real chip measurements are agreeable. The results show the recording amplifier consumes 6 µW with an input-referred noise of 3.8 µVrms. The ADC can digitize the neural signal at a sampling rate of 40kS/s at 9-bit resolution. The overall power consumption of the entire system is 2.56mW and occupies an area of 3x4mm².

[0006] An embodiment of the claimed invention includes the following features:

a) Scalable architecture of analog front-end to support high density of channel for neural recording system, even > 1,000 channels.

b) Fully integrated low power/low noise chip design of analog front end including 3-stage amplifiers and SAR ADC using deep submicron CMOS process technology such as 65nm, 45nm, 22nm, etc CMOS process.

c) Low power and low noise design by a special gain-boosted folded-cascode amplifier to enhance amplifier's open-loop gain while simultaneously reducing the input-referred noise.

d) The amplifier has a high input impedance and is capable of supporting programmable gain (47-59dB) and programmable bandwidth (0.1Hz-12KHz), for local field potential and action potential for neural signal processing, as well as other applications such as environmental and chemical agent detections.

e) Programmable bandwidth is achieved by tuning the bias voltage of series of transistors operating at weak inversion region as well as the loading capacitance.

f) Each 9-bit SAR ADC with variable sampling rate and is shared by 32 channels of amplifiers via 32:1 multiplexor, thus the data of 32 channels is serialized and output via wired or wireless communication.

[0007] In one embodiment, a fully integrated neural amplifier using gain-boosting is provided for local field potentials (LFP), neural spikes, ECoG signals from biological subjects. Two electrodes, working electrode and counter electrode, are connected to the DC block capacitor, C;_n, of the neural amplifier. While a ground/reference electrode connects the body ground to circuit ground of the amplifier. A capacitive feedback configuration sets the gain of the neural amplifier as the ratio of the input capacitor (C_in) and feedback capacitor (C_f). The parasitic effects from C_par, C_in, and C_f can be suppressed by the enhanced open-loop gain of the amplifier to minimize gain distortion, where C_par is the parasitic capacitance of the input transistors operating in sub-threshold region.

[0008] Open-loop gain enhancement of the amplifier is achieved by incorporating an auxiliary amplifier into a conventional folded-cascode (FC) amplifier while still consuming the comparable amount of current to a conventional FC amplifier. The overall gain of the amplifier is the summation of gain of the FC amplifier and the auxiliary amplifier.

[0009] The auxiliary amplifier for gain enhancement is achieved by two common-source (CS) amplifiers. The first amplifier can be formed by a differential pair with diode-connected load or a current source load. Outputs of the first amplification stage are connected to the two gates of current source transistors of the FC amplifier, respectively, which are used as the second CS amplifier. The second CS amplifier is embedded into the folded branch of the FC amplifier for the purpose of minimizing current consumption.

[0010] The input signal is amplified by two routes (see FIG. 3): one is through the differential input pair of the FC amplifier, M_1a-1b; the other is amplified by the first CS amplifier of M_1c-d and M5_a-b as well as the second CS amplifier formed by M_4a-b and the impedance seen from M_4a drain. The overall gain of the gain-boosted amplifier is derived as

where g_mi and r_oi are the transconductance and output resistance corresponding to transistor M_i, , and α is the current distribution ratio (0.5<α<1) The gain of the amplifier is boosted (1+g_m4/g_m5(2α-1)) times as shown in equation 1 by using the gain boosted technique.

[0011] Through the gain enhancement technique, a small input capacitor of the neural amplifier can be used to achieve larger input impedance such that signal distortion/attenuation between the electrode and amplifier interface is reduced. 5pF capacitor is used to result in the input impedance of 31.8 Mohm at 1 kHz.

[0012] Smaller C_in reduce the silicon area of the amplifier, which enables the implementation of multi-channel recording with less silicon area.

[0013] The neural amplifier is integrated monolithically on a single semiconductor chip. No external/off-chip capacitor is required.

[0014] The neural amplifier structure is applicable for modern sub-100nm CMOS technology, in which a low supply voltage, smaller output resistance, and larger leakage current emerge.

[0015] The input differential transistor pair of the neural amplifier is implemented with thick oxide I/O devices to prevent significant gate leakage current in modern sub-100 nm CMOS technology.

[0016] Low power consumption of 4 µW or less is achieved by biasing the input differential transistor pair of the neural amplifier in sub-threshold region.

[0017] Low input-referred noise for the gain-boosted amplifier is achieved by (a) reducing the current flowing in the folded branch of an conventional FC amplifier, i.e. reduce the noise contribution from the cascaded transistors, and (b) increasing open loop-gain of the amplifier with the gain-boosted technique.

[0018] The input-referred noise power density of the neural amplifier with gain boost technique and an FC amplifier are shown in equation 2 and equation 3, respectively.

and

where K is the Boltsmann constant, κ is the sub-threshold gate coupling coefficient, g_mi is the transconductance corresponding to transistor M_i, T is the absolute temperature, α is the current distribution ratio in the amplifier, γ is the thermal noise coefficient, and α is the current distribution ratio (0.5<α<1). The term g_m1(2α-1)g_m4/g_m5 in the denominator stems from the boosted gain of the amplifier to lowers the noise power density. Note that g_m4 in equation 2 is also smaller than in equation 3 due to the reduced current in the folded branch of the amplifier. Thus, from equations 2 and 3 the input-referred noise of the neural amplifier is suppressed by the gain-boost technique with a moderate choice of α.

[0019] The neural amplifier can be disabled once it is malfunctioned after implantation to prevent damage to the subjects.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0020] 

FIG. 1

shows an architecture of a 64-channel recording system according an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2

shows a schematic of one neuron recording channel according an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3

shows a schematic of the gain-boosted amplifier according an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4

shows a schematic of analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital controller module (DCM) according an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5

shows a layout of a 64-channel recording system according an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6

shows a frequency response of one recording channel according an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7.

shows a simulated input-referred noise of the neuron recording channel for local field potentials (LFPs) and spikes recording setting according an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

SYSTEM OVERVIEW

[0021] The overall system architecture is shown in FIG. 1. An exemplary embodiment of the 64-channel system includes two 32-channel recording units and a shared digital controller module (DCM). Each recording unit contains 32 recording channels, one 32-to-1 multiplexer, and an SAR ADC. Within each channel, the neuron amplifier first magnifies the infinitesimal neuron signal. A programmable gain and bandwidth filter is cascaded and configured based on the signal of interests. Buffer at each channel passes the filtered output to the multiplexer. The ADC then digitizes the signal with a sampling rate of 40kS/s per channel and feeds the output to DCM for data serialization and performing channel-specific processing to identify multi-site components.

CIRCUIT DESIGN

Single Recording Channel

[0022] A schematic of one neuron recording channel is shown in FIG. 2. The first stage adopted an AC-coupled amplifier and provided a mid-band amplification of 39.6 dB. The high-pass cutoff frequency of this amplifier is set by the MOS-bipolar pseudo-resistor formed by M_RA1-RA12 and the feedback capacitor, C_f. The high-pass and low-pass cutoff frequencies of the subsequent bandpass filter can be adjusted by tuning V_tune to change R_HPF and by altering the value of C_L, where R_HPF is formed by PMOS transistors M_RB1-RB11 operating in weak inversion and C_L is the load capacitor of the bandpass filter. The recording channel has the capability to adjust its gain from 47 dB to 59 dB. A critical issue rising from using a sub-100mn process is the increased gate-leakage current compared to the less advanced process. A difference of 2Å in the gate oxide thickness can lead to an order of magnitude change in the gate-leakage current [5]. Therefore, in our design M_RA1-RA12, M_RB1-RB12, and input transistors of amplifier A₁ are implemented with thick-oxide I/O transistors to reduce the leakage current, which increases the amplifier noise and lower the resistance of the pseudo-resistor.

Gain-boosted Amplifier

[0023] The mid-band gain of the neuron amplifier can be approximated as

where C_par and A₁ are the parasitic capacitance of the input transistors and the open-loop gain of the amplifier, respectively. Input capacitance (C_in) is expected to be small, i.e. in the range of several pF, to achieve high input impedance of tens of Mega ohms, while feedback capacitance (C_f) must also be reduced to achieve a reasonable gain, for example 40dB. Though gain error is acceptable for neuron amplifier, a high open-loop gain is still desired to suppress the parasitic effect resulting from large size input transistor and capacitors. However, a high gain is difficult to achieve under the constraint of low supply voltage of 1.2V and power limitation.

[0024] As shown in FIG. 3, we designed a gain-boosted folded-cascode amplifier to enhance amplifier's open-loop gain while simultaneously reducing the input-referred noise. For the biasing condition of the amplifier only a small fraction of overall current is flowing into the folded branch of M₃-M₄ reducing its noise contribution. Nonetheless under 1.2V supply voltage, it is impractical in our design to add a source degenerated resistor to lower the noise from M₂. We utilized the fraction of current taken from M₂ to build an auxiliary gain stage formed by M_1c-d and M_5a-b. The additional gain stage enhanced the gain of the amplifier to 1+(2α-1)g_m4/g_m5) times and simultaneously reduced the noise from M₂. By biasing the input differential transistor M₁ into sub-threshold region, the input-referred noise of the amplifier can be derived as equation 2 (see summary). Equation 2 demonstrates the input-referred noise can be reduced by using the gain-boosted topology. Note that g_m2 and g_m4 in equation 2 are small due to the reduced current flowing through. The value of C_in and C_f is chosen as 5pF and 50fF for input impedance, noise, and power tradeoff.

Variable Gain Bandpass Filter (BPF)

[0025] The variable gain BPF aims to provide independent tuning capabilities of gain and bandwidth in one single stage to reduce the power consumption. This filter is composed of a cascade of a transconductor and a transimpedance amplifier with a load capacitor, and an RC first order high pass filter as shown in FIG. 2. The voltage gain of the filter is decided by the product of transductance GM and R_f, which is the feedback resistor of the transimpedance amplifier. Thus, the gain can be adjusted by setting the current flowing in the transconductor. The variable gain bandpass can provide 7dB-19dB gain within a given bandwidth.

Neuron Signal Digitization

[0026] A differential charge-redistribution SAR ADC is designed to digitize 64-channel neuron signals. The ADC architecture has unit capacitance of 20fF. An ADC controller and a multiplexer controller are incorporated in the DCM. A 32:1 multiplexer is placed in front of each ADC to select the channel for sampling. Although using a 5-bit counter to sequentially loop from channel 1 to 32 is straightforward, it may not be the most desirable method in all circumstances. For example, not all of the channels have proper input to be sampled at any time, and the user might only be interested in a subset of channels. Therefore, a channel-of-interest feature is implemented in the multiplexer controller. This enables the user to choose an arbitrary subset of channels, and turn off the rest in order to save power. Some of the channels can even have a higher sampling frequency than others.

[0027] FIG. 4 shows an example of the architecture of this multiplexer controller. A 33 x 5 register file is employed to store the sampling channel indices as well as the number of channels that will be used. To enable a subset of four specific channels, say ch1, ch10 ch19, and ch28, the register file should be filled with 1, 10, 19, and 28 in the first four entries, and 3 in the last entry. The 5-bit counter will loop from 0-3, thus the desired channel indices will be sent to the channel multiplexer sequentially to enable these channels, and all other channels will not be sampled. If the third entry in the previous example is replaced by ch1, then ch1 will be sampled when the 5-bit counter is either 0 or 2, so it has twice the sampling frequency of ch10 and ch28. Thus, a channel can be filled into multiple entries in the register file to achieve a sampling frequency up to 16 times higher than others.

[0028] A programmable 20-bit clock divider is implemented in the ADC controller and serves two purposes: to dissociate the sampling frequency and the oscillator frequency; to provide a flexible sampling frequency setting for each ADC. There are two ADCs in this system, so a high frequency oscillator is required for data stream handling. The clock divider can generate appropriate clock frequency for ADC operation no matter what frequency the oscillator is. In addition, since the channel-of-interest feature allows the user to enable a subset of channels, the accumulated frequency is lower in this mode. Thus, the clock divider can be used to set the accumulated sample frequency for each individual ADC based on the number of activated channels and the desired sample frequency per channel.

SIMULATION RESULTS

[0029] An exemplary 64-channel neuron recording system was designed and under fabrication in TSMC 65nm CMOS process. The entire system is operated and simulated under 1.2V supply while consuming 40 µW per channel. Note that only 6 µW is consumed by the neuron recording amplifier and BPF. The chip layout occupies an area of 3x4 mm², as shown in FIG. 5. The exemplary layout and power consumption are not optimized for testing purpose.

[0030] FIG. 6 shows the frequency responses of one neuron recording channel. For recording LFPs, the system exhibits a programmable gain from 47 dB to 59 dB within the bandwidth from 0.5Hz to 500Hz. While with the immediate setting for spike recording, the system provides variable gain from 46.5 dB to 58.5 dB from 300 Hz 12 kHz.

TABLE I PERFORMANCE SUMMARY AND COMPARISON

Reference	[3]	[8]	[9]	This Work
Technology	0.5 µm CMOS	0.5µm CMOS	0.18µm CMOS	65 nm CMOS
No. of channels	1	16	16	64
Supply voltage (V)	2.8	3.3	1.8	1.2
Mid-band gain (dB)	40.9	39.6	70	47∼59
High-cutoff freq.(Hz)	0.392 ~295	0.2~94	100	0.5~0.3k
Low-cutoff freq. (Hz)	45 ~5.32k	140 ~8.2k	9..2k	500, 12k
Input referred noise (µVrms)	3.06	1.94	5.4	3.8*1, 2.0*2
Input impedance @ 1kHz (Mohm)	11.38	7.9	-	31.8
Power consumption of amplifier (µW)	7.56	26.4	8.6	6
NEF	2.37	2.9	4.9	33
NEF2*VDD	15.7	27.7	43.2	10.8
ADC sampling rate/per channel	-	16k or 500	30k	4k∼40k
Resolution (bits)	-	7~12	8	9
Overall power consumption (mW)	-	1.8	0.68	2.56

1 with noise integrating bandwidth of 30 Hz to 100 kHz 2 width with noise integrating bandwidth of 0.5 Hz to 5 kHz 3 for spike recording

[0031] Note that the gain of spike recording is slightly lower than that of LFPs because of smaller R_HPF value, which lowers the overall output impedance of neuron amplifier. The simulated input-referred noise for both configurations of LFPs and spikes recording is shown in FIG. 7. For LFPs recording, 1/f noise still dominates and thus it is difficult to distinguish the thermal noise level. The overall input-referred noise for both recording settings are 2 µV_rms (integrating from 0.1 Hz to 5 kHz) and 3.8 µV_rms (integrating from 30 Hz to 100 kHz) under 47 dB gain configuration. Note that the noise integrating bandwidth here is much larger than the signal bandwidth. Since the popular NEF metric [3] only concerns the current of the amplifier, it cannot reflect the power efficiency. Thus we compared both NEF and the modified metric [10]

where P is the power consumption of the amplifier and BW is the signal bandwidth.

[0032] The performance of the neuron recording system and comparison with other works is summarized in Table I. The recording system has high input impedance of 31.8Mohm at 1kHz to mitigate the inevitable signal attenuation at the electrode-amplifier interface. The recording amplifier with bandpass filter presents the lowest NEF²*VDD product. An ADC with a flexible sampling rate for individual channels further gives the user more flexibility to monitor the neuron signal of interests. The overall power consumption of the entire system is 2.56 mW at a system clock rate of 23 MHz.

References

[0033] 

[1] M. A. Nicolelis, J. K. Chapin, Controlling robots with the mind., Scientific American, United States, vol. 287 no. 4, pp. 46-53, 2002

[2] M. A. L. Nicolelis, "Actions from thoughts." Nature, 2001

[3] W. Wattanapanitch, M. Fee, and R. Sarpeshkar, "An energy efficient micropower neural recording amplifier." IEEE Trans. Biomed. Circuits Sys., vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 136-147, June 2007

[4] Matthew J. Nelsona, Pierre Pougeta, Erik A. Nilsenc, Craig D. Pattenc, and Jeffrey D. Schalla, "Review of signal distortion through metal microelectrode recording circuits and filters, " Journal of Neuroscience Methods, vol. 169, iss. 1, pp 141-157, 30 March 2008,

[5] M. Manghisoni, L. Gaioni, L. Ratti, Member, IEEE, V. Re, V. Speziali, and G. Traversi, "Impact of gate-leakage current noise in sub-100 nm CMOS front-end electronics," IEEE Nuclear Science Sym. Conf. Record, vol. 5, pp. 12503-2508, 2007

[6] Thanachayanont, A. Naktongkul, "Low-voltage wideband compact CMOS variable gain amplifier," IEEE Electron. Lett., vol. 41, iss. 2, pp. 51-52,2005

[7] David Johns, Ken Martin, Analog Integrated Circuit Design, Wiley, 1997

[8] J. M. Mollazadeh, K. Murari, G. Cauwenberghs, and N. Thakor, "Micropower CMOS integrated low-noise amplification, filtering, and digitization of multimodal neuropotentials," IEEE Trans. Biomed. Circuits Syst., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-10, Feb. 2009

[9] B. Gosselin, A. E. Ayoub, J.-F. Roy, M. Sawan, F. Lepore, A. Chaudhuri, and D. Guitton, "A Mixed-Signal Multichip Neural Recording Interface With Bandwidth Reduction," IEEE Trans. on Biomed. Circuits and Systems, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 129-141, Jun. 2009

[10] Rikky Muller, Simone Gambini, Jan M. Rabaey, "A 0.013mm2 5µW DC-Coupled Neural Signal Acquisition IC with 0.5V Supply ," ISSCC Dig. Tech. Papers, Feb., 2011

[11] Yi-Kai Lo, Wentai Liu, Kuanfu Chen, Ming-Hsien Tsai, and Fu-Lung Hsueh, " A 64-Channe neuron recording system," IEEE EMBS, Aug., 2011

Claims

1. A fully integrated neural amplifier for amplifying neural signals, comprising:

(a) a first stage amplifier within the neural amplifier, said first stage amplifier configured for connection to a working electrode and a counter electrode, each said electrode connected to said first stage amplifier through a separate DC blocking capacitor (Cin), as input capacitor;

(b) a capacitive feedback circuit within said first stage amplifier configured for setting a gain of said neural amplifier as a ratio of said input capacitor (Cin) and a feedback capacitor (Cf); and

(c) a folded-cascode (FC) amplifier having an auxiliary gain stage incorporated in said first stage amplifier to increase open loop gain, said auxiliary gain stage comprising two common-source (CS) amplifiers, in which the first common-source (CS) amplifier is formed by a differential pair of transistors with diode-connected load, so that the differential outputs of said first common-source (CS) amplifier are connected to two gates of current source transistors of said folded cascade amplifier which comprise the second common-source (CS) amplifier embedded into the folded branch of said folded-cascode (FC) amplifier for the purpose of minimizing current consumption.

2. The neural amplifier as set forth in claim 1, wherein the overall gain of the first stage amplifier is the summation of gain of the FC amplifier and the auxiliary gain stage.

3. The neural amplifier as set forth in claim 1, wherein said neural signals are local field potentials (LFP), neural spikes, ECoG signals.

4. The neural amplifier as set forth in claim 1, wherein said neural amplifier is integrated monolithically on a single semiconductor chip.

5. The neural amplifier as set forth in claim 1, wherein said neural amplifier does not require an external/off-chip capacitor.

6. The neural amplifier as set forth in claim 1, wherein said neural amplifier has a power consumption of about 4 µW or less.

7. The neural amplifier as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a variable gain bandpass filter in output of the first stage amplifier; the variable gain bandpass filter comprising a cascade of a transconductor and a transimpedance amplifier with a load capacitor, and an RC first order high pass filter having a voltage gain determined by the product of the transductance of the transconductor and the feedback resistor of the transimpedance amplifier, and the variable gain can be adjusted by setting the current flowing in the transconductor.

8. The neural amplifier apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising a MOS bipolar pseudo-resistor (R1) in parallel with said feedback capacitor (Cf) to establish a high-pass cutoff frequency of said first stage amplifier.

Ansprüche

1. Voll integrierter neuraler Verstärker zur Verstärkung neuraler Signale, wobei der Verstärker folgendes umfasst:

(a) einen ersten Stufenverstärker in dem neuralen Verstärker, wobei der erste Stufenverstärker konfiguriert ist für eine Verbindung mit einer Arbeitselektrode und mit einer Gegenelektrode, wobei jede der genannten Elektroden mit dem genannten ersten Stufenverstärker über einen separaten Gleichstrom-Sperrkondensator (Cin) als Eingangskondensator verbunden ist;

(b) einen kapazitiven Rückkopplungskreis in dem genannten ersten Stufenverstärker, der so konfiguriert ist, dass er eine Verstärkung des genannten neuralen Verstärkers als ein Verhältnis des genannten Eingangskondensators (Cin) und eines Rückkopplungskondensators (Cf) festlegt; und

(c) einen Verstärker mit gefalteter Kaskode (FC-Verstärker) mit einer Zusatzverstärkerstufe, die in dem ersten Stufenverstärker inkorporiert ist, um die Leerlaufverstärkung zu erhöhen, wobei die Zusatzverstärkerstufe zwei Common Source-Verstärker (CS-Verstärker) umfasst, wobei der erste Common Source-Verstärker (CS-Verstärker) durch ein differentielles Paar von Transistoren mit Last mit Diodenverbindung gebildet ist, so dass die differentiellen Ausgänge des genannten ersten Common Source-Verstärkers (CS-Verstärker) mit zwei Gate-Anschlüssen von Strom-Source-Transistoren des genannten Verstärkers mit gefalteter Kaskade verbunden sind, welche den zweiten Common Source-Verstärker (CS-Verstärker) umfassen, der eingebettet ist in den gefalteten Zweig des genannten Verstärkers mit gefalteter Kaskode (FC-Verstärker) zum Zweck der Minimierung des Stromverbrauchs.

2. Neuraler Verstärker nach Anspruch 1, wobei die Gesamtverstärkung des ersten Stufenverstärkers die Summierung der Verstärkung des FC-Verstärkers und der Zusatzverstärkerstufe ist.

3. Neuraler Verstärker nach Anspruch 1, wobei die genannten neuralen Signale lokale Feldpotenziale (LFP), neurale Spitzen, ECOG-Signale sind.

4. Neuraler Verstärker nach Anspruch 1, wobei der genannte neurale Verstärker monolithisch auf einem einzelnen Halbleiterchip integriert ist.

5. Neuraler Verstärker nach Anspruch 1, wobei der genannte neurale Verstärker keinen externen/außerhalb des Chips angeordneten Kondensator erfordert.

6. Neuraler Verstärker nach Anspruch 1, wobei der genannte neurale Verstärker einen Stromverbrauch von etwa 4 µW oder weniger aufweist.

7. Neuraler Verstärker nach Anspruch 1, wobei dieser ferner einen Bandpassfilter mit variabler Verstärkung in dem Ausgang des ersten Stufenverstärkers umfasst; wobei der Bandpassfilter mit variabler Verstärkung eine Kaskade aus einem Transkonduktor- und einem Transimpedanz-Verstärker mit einem Lastkondensator umfasst, und mit einem RC-Hochpassfilter erster Ordnung mit einer Spannungsverstärkung, die bestimmt ist durch das Produkt der Transduktanz des Transduktors und des Rückkopplungswiderstands des Transimpedanz-Verstärkers; und wobei die variable Verstärkung angepasst werden kann durch Einstellung des in dem Transkonduktor fließenden Stroms.

8. Neurale Verstärkervorrichtung nach Anspruch 1, wobei diese ferner einen bipolaren MOS-Pseudowiderstand (R1) in paralleler Schaltung zu dem genannten Rückkopplungskondensator (Cf) umfasst, um eine Hochpassgrenzfrequenz des ersten Stufenverstärkers zu erzeugen.

Revendications

1. Amplificateur neuronal entièrement intégré destiné à amplifier les signaux neuronaux, comprenant :

(a) un amplificateur de premier étage situé dans l'amplificateur neuronal, ledit amplificateur de premier étage étant conçu pour une connexion à une électrode de travail et à une électrode auxiliaire, chacune desdites électrodes étant connectée audit amplificateur de premier étage par l'intermédiaire d'un condensateur de blocage CC (Cin) séparé, en tant que condensateur d'entrée ;

(b) un circuit de rétroaction capacitif situé dans ledit amplificateur de premier étage conçu pour définir un gain dudit amplificateur neuronal en tant que ratio dudit condensateur d'entrée (Cin) et d'un condensateur de rétroaction (Cf) ; et

(c) un amplificateur cascode replié (FC) ayant un étage de gain auxiliaire intégré audit amplificateur de premier étage pour augmenter le gain en boucle ouverte, ledit étage de gain auxiliaire comprenant deux amplificateurs à source commune (CS), le premier amplificateur à source commune (CS) étant formé par une paire différentielle de transistors avec charge connectée par diode, de sorte que les sorties différentielles dudit premier amplificateur à source commune (CS) soient connectées à deux grilles de transistors à source de courant dudit amplificateur en cascade replié qui comprennent le second amplificateur à source commune (CS) intégré dans la branche repliée dudit amplificateur cascode replié (FC) afin de minimiser la consommation de courant.

2. Amplificateur neuronal selon la revendication, le gain général de l'amplificateur de premier étage étant la somme du gain de l'amplificateur FC et de l'étage à gain auxiliaire.

3. Amplificateur neuronal selon dans la revendication 1, lesdits signaux neuronaux étant des potentiels de champs locaux (LFP), des pics neuronaux ou des signaux ECoG.

4. Amplificateur neuronal selon dans la revendication 1, ledit amplificateur neuronal étant intégré monolithiquement sur une puce semi-conductrice unique.

5. Amplificateur neuronal selon dans la revendication 1, ledit amplificateur neuronal ne nécessitant pas un condensateur externe/hors puce.

6. Amplificateur neuronal selon dans la revendication 1, ledit amplificateur neuronal ayant une consommation électrique d'environ 4 µW ou moins.

7. Amplificateur neuronal selon dans la revendication 1, comprenant en outre un filtre passe-bande à gain variable dans la sortie de l'amplificateur de premier étage ; le filtre passe-bande à gain variable comprenant une cascade d'un transconducteur et d'un amplificateur à transimpédance ayant un condensateur de charge, et un filtre passe-haut de premier ordre RC ayant un gain en tension déterminé par le produit de la transductance du transconducteur et de la résistance de rétroaction de l'amplificateur à transimpédance, et le gain variable pouvant être ajusté en réglant le courant circulant dans le transconducteur.

8. Appareil amplificateur neuronal selon la revendication 1, comprenant en outre une pseudo-résistance bipolaire MOS (R1) en parallèle avec ledit condensateur de rétroaction (Cf) pour établir une fréquence de coupure passe-haut dudit amplificateur de premier étage.

Drawing